The present invention relates to a production of an input/output program for data in a computer software, more particularly, an instance of an object-oriented language on a display screen. Also, the present invention relates to an architecture of a design supporting system containing an instance input/output.
In development of electronic apparatuses such as a computer, a support by software is necessarily required. In particular, it is important at investigating stages of a new model and also a new system that various constructive sketches of the apparatuses are inputted as models; a simulation is carried out; a simulation result is evaluated; and the above-described operations are repeated so as to reconsider a design policy. Also, it is important that the design policy is correctly transferred to relevant staff members with easy understandings.
An object-oriented language is to provide methodology for constituting software in which an "object" is used as a component, and owns a high applicability to a design matter. A basic element of an object-oriented language program is defined by a class. In a class definition, both a slot group as a variable of this class, and a method group corresponding to a procedure related to this class are defined. A concrete program element in accordance to this class definition is called as an "instance". There is provided a class corresponding to a sort of a component contained in an object to be designed, in which an attribute of this component and an element thereof are defined as a slot, whereas an effect of a component is defined as a method. Then, a model having various objects is archietected by combining the instances of the class, and then a simulation is performed by initiating the method.
To effectively utilize the above-described object-oriented type simulator, an improvement in the interface is expected when an instance is inputted and a result of a simulation is outputted. As to the input, it is important that the input is available in the interactive mode, and also both the component and entire model under input operation can be easily grasped. Accordingly, it is expected to enter an instance in a form of figure.
As to an output of the result, it is desirable to directly utilize the output of the instance to the display screen without any modification as the input in order that the simulator is repeatedly utilized thereby to progress the design and evaluation. On the other hand, it is required to develop the simulator at an earlier stage in development of the new mode and new system, and the above-described interface group must quickly accept variations in design objects and also investing ranges.
In view of easy representation of a function of a design model, not only a structure of this model is illustrated, but also an operation of a simulation is displayed by way of animation. Then, for instance, great expectations are made of means for dynamically deforming a graphic representation of the model.
In the conventional object-oriented design supporting method by inputting/outputting the figure of the instance and by inputting/outputting such a figure, into which concept of presentation has been introduced, it is required to greatly rewrite an input program when the input figure is modified in order that an input interface of the object-oriented application program is arbitrarily modified, depending upon the interactive situation and the contents to be inputted. Also, a cumbersome format change is required.
With respect to both the figure input/output of the instance, and also the object-oriented design support by the figure input/output, it is described in a literature SSE 90-114 of Electronic Information Communication Institute in 1991. In accordance with the above-described literature, the component function is defined as the class by the object-oriented language program, whereas the class for the component figure is defined. Thus, the figure indicative of the class of the component is transferred to the window for producing the model, thereby inputting the input. Upon formation of the model to be designed, the simulation is performed by sending the message to the instance of the component function, and then the message is transferred to the instance of the component figure so that the result thereof is displayed in the animation. However, there is no description in this literature, about the method for defining the class of the component figure, the method for architecting the model by coupling the instances with each other, and further the method for defining the method by the animation display.
Generally speaking, a description process by a program of an object-oriented language has been employed as a process for inputting a class definition and a method definition used to a definition on a coupling process of instances, and an animation representation.
On the other hand, with respect to the interface of the object-oriented application program, it is expected to arbitrarily change the interface, depending upon the interactive state and the contents to be inputted. In particular, it is required to prepare the definition on the design component within a short term in supporting of development of the new product and also the new system. Furthermore, to globally progress the design, the interface must be variable and must quickly accept variations in the design object and the investigation range.
To the contrary, if the method definition for defining the class of the component figure and the coupling method of the instances, and also used to the animation representation, is described by the program of the object-oriented language, it is not easy to set, change and expand the interface.
Other prior arts are described in, for instance, "Interactive Simulation in Smalltalk" by P. S. van der Meulen, ACM OOPSLA '87 proceedings, Oct. 4-8, 1987, pages 366 to 376. In this publication, there is shown an example such that as to the previously defined circuit component group, the figures of these circuit component group are drawn and the instances of the function are produced at the same time; these figures are connected with each other thereby to architect the model and perform the simulation. However, this paper does not describe such a scheme for giving the figures of these components, the drawing procedure, and the procedure of coupling the instances by the connections.
There is another publication "Kanae"; A High-Level Software Platform for User-Interface Development Using Editor Parts" by Rekimoto et al., Information Processing of Society, vol. 31, No. 5, pages 602 to 611 (May, 1990). The Rekimoto et al literature discloses a scheme for applying by the user the function to be called with regard to the mouse operation in the graphic editor. However, there is no description that the effects such as the slot reference and the method call to the instance corresponding to the figure are automatically allocated. As a consequence, a simulation representation of an operation specification in a real-time system cannot be realized.